Walmart Apollo, LLC

Wal-mart Stores, Inc.

Other

Nicholaus Adam Jones

Matthew Allen Jones

Robert J Taylor

Aaron James Vasgaard

Bruce Walter Wilkinson

Daniel R Shields

Marc Ashley Fletter

Alvin Scott Taulbee

Steven Lewis

Matthew Biermann

Jeremy Tingler

Thomas Edward Stiefel

Todd Davenport Mattingly

Richard Ulrich

Jarrod Lee Bourlon

Justin C Lewis

Abu Rasel

Jeffrey Scott Cruz

Matthew M Lowrie

Donald R High

David C Winkle

David L Vann

Robert James Taylor

Jason Todd

Tim Webb

Danika Goecke

Jie Ouyang

Harika Valluripalli

Ryan Cox

John F Neal

Andrew P Riggins

Richard B Ulrich

Thomas E Stiefel

Alvin S Taulbee

In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful for a retail facility to maintain information regarding product location, in part, from correlating a shopper's cart path and their purchased items with those of other shoppers. In some approaches, the methods and apparatuses may determine a cart path for a particular shopping cart by analyzing aisle markers captured by an image capturing device in the shopping cart, associate that cart path with the purchased items from that shopping cart, and compare the associated cart path and purchased items with similar information from other customers. In some examples, by comparing the associated cart paths and purchased items form a plurality of customers, an aisle location of one of the retail items is identified and the database of aisle locations and retail items may be updated accordingly.

Methods and systems for tracking carts and retail products in a shopping space

Systems and methods for controlling electronic shelf labels are disclosed. Product data identifying at least one product and a price of the at least one product and layout data of a physical environment including locations of one or more shelves, a respective shelf location of the at least one product, and coordinates of a plurality of electronic shelf labels is received. Coordinates for a first electronic shelf label associated with the respective shelf location is determined. A first emitter of a plurality of emitters that is capable of communicating with the first electronic shelf label is determined and positioned to direct a signal to the coordinates of the first electronic shelf label to establish a link with only the first electronic shelf label. A portion of the product data is transmitted via the signal, which causes the first electronic shelf label to display the portion of the product data.

System and method for remote controlling of electronic shelf labels

Systems, methods, and processor-readable storage media for remote controlling of electronic shelf labels. An example method includes receiving, at a computing device, store layout data of a retail store and product data. The product data identifies at least one product and a price of the product. The method causes an optical emitter to emit an optical signal to at least one electronic shelf label based at least in part on the store layout data, the product data, and a predetermined rule. The optical signal bears the product data and is configured to cause the electronic shelf label to change displayable information to reflect new product data. The electronic shelf label can also send feedback to the optical emitter to inform that the optical signal was successfully received.

In some embodiments, methods and systems of managing bins audits in a stock room of a retail sales facility include generating at least one bin audit management factor for the bins at the retail sales facility. The bin audit management factor can include an amount of time a total number of products stored in the bin does not change; a number of times a one product is binned or picked from the bin, a number of products stored in the bin; and an accuracy percentage of a worker at the retail sales facility during a preceding audit of the bin. Based on whether the value of one or more of the bin audit management factors meets a predetermined threshold value that supports the auditing of a bin, an indication to a worker at the retail sales facility is generated as to whether that bin is to be audited or not.

Methods and systems for managing stock room bin audits at retail sales facilities

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided herein for reusing containers. A system for container reuse comprises an order database storing a plurality of orders associated with an order fulfillment facility, a conveyor system, and a control circuit. The control circuit being configured to determine container capacity requirements of the plurality of orders in the order database based on dimensions of products in each order, predict container usage for fulfilling orders at the order fulfillment facility based at least on the container capacity requirements of the plurality of orders, determine whether a used container received at the conveyor system should be retained based on a container dimension of the used container and the container usage predicted for the order fulfillment facility, and cause the conveyor system to route the used container to a fulfillment area or a disposal area based on whether the used container should be retained.

Apparatus and method for reusing containers

A system for keeping track of an employee's attendance is described that allows the employee to be creative which also helps morale. An employee sets up an employee account and provides identification. A full body image is taken of the employee that is analyzed. Facial features may also be analyzed and stored. The employee then can create his/her own unique gesture which is captured and stored as a unique clock in gesture. He/she may also set up passwords and/or security questions if the gesture is not recognized. The employee then performs the unique clock in gesture to notify the system when he/she is beginning or leaving work. During clock in, the system checks human resource rules, accumulated work hours and characteristics of the employee's employment and clocks in the employee if it determines that the employee meets the rules and is allowed to clock in and work additional hours.

Camera gesture clock in

Some embodiments provide RFID tag reading systems comprising: multiple sets of RFID readers at a retail shopping facility; a tag evaluation control circuit communicatively coupled with the multiple sets of RFID readers and at least one memory, and configured to: receive RFID tag information from the RFID readers; obtain and apply a first set of rules and identify a transition area within the retail shopping facility based on the received RFID tag information; identify a first set of RFID readers configured to read RFID tags as they move through the identified transition area; obtain and apply a second set of rules and establish a first null area adjacent the transition area configured to enable RFID tags crossing through the first null area and prior to entering the transition area to be in a predefined state when entering the transition area.

Systems and methods of establishing RFID null zones in detecting products in a retail environment

A technique for monitoring the quality of objects is disclosed. A container includes a multiple sensors and is configured to receive an object. The sensors monitor various metrics associated with the quality of the object, and a display is affixed to the container for displaying a visual indication of the quality of the object. The visual indication is based on data collected from the sensors. A quality monitoring module is executed by a processor to control the sensors to switch operation between a first mode of operation and a second mode of operation based on a detected change in one of the metrics monitored by the sensors.

Systems, devices, and methods for object quality monitoring

In some embodiments, methods and systems of determining whether to purge a bin in order to pick a product from the bin in a stock room of a retail sales facility include processing of bin purge factors associated with the bin and correlating the processed bin purge factors with bin purge threshold values associated with the bin. Based on whether the value of one or more of the bin purge factors meets or exceeds a threshold value that supports the purging of a bin, an indication to a worker at the retail sales facility is generated as to whether that bin is to be purged or not.

Methods and systems for facilitating product on-shelf-availability

In some embodiments, methods and systems of prioritizing retrieval of products from a plurality of bins at a retail sales facility are described. The methods include receiving an identification of a product being binned at a retail sales facility, then determining the size of the product, and then ranking the products in the bins based on the time stamp of a time of binning of the product. The physical size of the product and the ranking of the product are correlated to a size of the bins to determine the relative physical locations of the products in the bins. A pick of a product from a bin is generated based on a determination that the location of the product to be picked in one of the bins is higher than a location of at least one identical product in at least another one of the bins.

Methods and systems for prioritizing retrieval of products from stock room bins

In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to determining an action to be performed based on vibrations detected on a product display unit. In some embodiments, a system for determining an action to perform based on vibrations comprises the product display unit, one or more vibration sensors, the one or more vibration sensors affixed to the product display unit and configured to detect vibration of the product display unit and transmit an indication of the vibration of the product display unit, and a control circuit communicatively coupled to the one or more vibration sensors and configured to receive, from the one or more vibration sensors, the indication of the vibration, estimate, based on the indication of the vibration a characteristic of at least one item on the product display unit, and determine, based on the characteristic, the action to be performed.

Product display unit with vibration sensors

In some embodiments, systems and methods are provided to track objects at a retail store, comprising: a mobile RFID transmitter system comprising an array of RFID tags; multiple RFID tag readers; a tracking control circuit communicatively coupled with the multiple RFID tag readers, and configured to: receive, from a sub-set of RFID tag readers, RFID tag information of each detected first set of RFID tags of the array of RFID tags; obtain a first set of rules and evaluate over time the received RFID tag information and identify over time threshold changes from a set of base information of received RFID signals from the array of RFID tags, wherein the threshold change is consistent with a first object traveling between the array of RFID tags and a corresponding one of the first sub-set of RFID tag readers; and track the first object.

Systems and methods of tracking objects in a retail store utilizing mobile RFID tag transmitter systems

An electronic shelf label system comprising a plurality of electronic shelf labels is provided.

Methods and systems for an electronic shelf label system

In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to updating an inventory database. In some embodiments, a system for updating an inventory database comprises an array of RFID readers positioned at different locations about the retail facility, where the RFID readers are configured to read RFID tags associated with products, and a control circuit, the control circuit configured to receive, from one or more RFID readers, identifiers, wherein the identifiers are associated with the RFID tags, determine, based on the identifiers, a flow of RFID tags, identify, without reference to a structural map of the retail facility, a transition point from the stockroom to the sales floor, determine, based on an RFID read, that a product has passed through the transition point from the stockroom to the sales floor, and update the inventory database to indicate that the product is located on the sales floor.

System and method for identifying transition points in a retail facility

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided herein for securing merchandise. In one embodiment an apparatus for securing merchandise comprises a locking mechanism limiting access to one or more items, one or more optical sensors configured to detect a plurality of wavelengths and an intensity associated with each wavelength from at least one light beam emitted by an optical key, and a control device comprising a control circuit and a memory device. The control device being configured to store a lock code comprising a plurality of wavelength values and a plurality of intensity values each associated with a wavelength value on the memory device and determine whether to release the locking mechanism based on whether intensities of each of the plurality of wavelengths detected by the one or more optical sensors match the lock code.

Growing community of inventors

Fayetteville, AR, United States of America

Nicholaus Adam Jones